


Pumpkin

by Josie



Category: NewS (Band)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 22:11:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josie/pseuds/Josie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone thinks Massu is fine and happy, until midnight of April 17th 2012. As the group go on air on the radio to announce their comeback, he does the unthinkable. In a police interview room after the incident, Massu is asked why, leading to an answer spanning over years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pumpkin

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Butafest in 2012 and originally posted there, combining two prompts "Massu snaps" and "Massu actually has OCD". I couldn't have done this without the help of many many interviews, translations, and news reports (although I forgot where I found a lot of the information/transcripts, so sorry that I can't credit properly!). I also couldn't have done it without the help of T and K and J who held my hand throughout this and gave me some awesome ideas to help me get inside the head of crazy!Massu. Disclaimer: This is fiction. I have no doubt that Massu would never do anything like this in his life, but I wanted to figure out why he might. While I've tried to base most of this on real life events, I've interpreted them in order to meet that goal.

**NEWS MEMBER MASUDA TAKAHISA "SNAPS".**  
  
 _Two members of Johnny's & Associates idol group NEWS are dead and one is in a critical condition in hospital after the fourth member, Masuda Takahisa allegedly pulled a knife out of his bag during a live radio broadcast, and stabbed them all.  
  
For the past week a countdown has appeared on the agency's official website, marking the groups supposed comeback. However, as the countdown reached zero and announced the anticipated airing of Koyama Keiichiro's radio show K-Chan NEWS, listeners heard muffled voices and screams before the show was cut off. Masuda was apprehended by a security guard as he threatened to turn the knife on himself, and was arrested by police shortly afterwards.  
  
The two dead men have been confirmed as Koyama Keiichiro and Kato Shigeaki. Tegoshi Yuya was rushed to hospital and is said to be in a serious condition._  
  
 **April 18th 2012**  
  
Massu could hear water dripping from somewhere. The roof was leaking, he decided. Or perhaps there were water pipes in the walls behind him. He supposed it didn't really matter, so long as it wasn't dripping on  _him_.   
  
"Did they put my clothes on the floor?" He glanced to the door of the police interview room he sat in, where a man - Massu didn't know his position - was standing guard while detectives he could see through the gaps in the blind on the door bustled around with paperwork and phone-calls.   
  
The guard seemed surprised to hear him speak suddenly, and shook his head. "I don't know. You can ask the detectives when they come in."  
  
Massu fingered the fabric of the 'outfit' he had been ordered to change into when he had arrived at the police headquarters. "This is really bad, ne?" he laughed, and it felt kind of like that magazine interview NEWS had done where they'd had to dress in each other's style. He didn't feel like himself, whatever "himself" was supposed to be.  
  
The door of the room opened, and three men entered, dismissing the guard at the door. Two of the men sat in chairs opposite Massu. The third, Massu's own assigned lawyer, took a seat in the remaining empty chair beside him.   
  
"My name is Detective Moriyama, and this is Detective Nishihama. Masuda, do you know why you're here?"  
  
"The security at the radio station are really quick."  
  
"So, if they hadn't been so quick where would you be now?"  
  
"A long way from here."  
  
"Literally?"  
  
Massu shrugged his wide shoulders, and then raised his hand, running one finger across his throat. "Did you put my clothes on the floor?"  
  
"They're with forensics. They have tables."  
  
"Good. They'll get messed up otherwise, ne? Do you have some questions for me?"  
  
"A few."  
  
"Okay." Massu's eyes disappeared under a smile, and he shifted his position into the relaxed he usually reserved for magazine interviews. He didn't see why this should be any different. "Shoot~!"  
  
"Why did you do it?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"You killed two people and almost killed a third on a live radio broadcast, and you don't know why?"  
  
Massu's smile turned into a frown, and pulled his leg from underneath himself and sat straight, leaning forwards. "... almost?"  
  
"Tegoshi Yuya is in the hospital right now. He's in a serious condition, but he might yet pull through."  
  
"He's not dead?"  
  
The detective shook his head; it was obvious what he had revealed had rattled Massu somehow. "Not at the moment, no."  
  
Massu let out a long breath he didn't even know he'd been holding, and then he looked down at the table, staring at a discoloured spot that looked like it had been rubbed away by someone, perhaps someone who had just been told one of their victims was still alive. He reached out one hand and started to rub at a spot slightly to the right of the mark already there. It was all wrong. The table should all be the same colour.   
  
"Is that bad news?" the detective asked.  
  
"I don't want to answer any more questions right now," Massu replied, staring straight at the detective, his expression reading nothing. His stance had changed from the one he'd positioned himself in for the interview, and so had his attitude.   
  
The detective nodded. There was no need to prove who had carried out the murders, and Massu had already been charged. Really, they had all the time in the world, but there were a lot of people out there who wanted answers to questions, and their only job now, was to try and get those answers. He leaned in closer to the recorder sitting in the middle of the table. "Interview terminated 9.22am," he sighed, and ended the recording.   
  
 **August 20th 1998**  
  
The room was full of nervous chatter throughout the room as a group of twenty boys waited to hear their fate. Masuda Takahisa sat in the front row of seating. To his left, sat a boy he remembered was called Nakamaru Yuichi. In the row behind him, two boys argued over who was better.  
  
“What do you think is going to happen?” the boy beside him asked, and Massu gave him a shrug.  
  
“I don't know,” he replied to him, but he thought that whatever it was, he would definitely be a part of it.  
  
The room fell into silence as a man walked into the room and stood in front of them, and twenty pairs of eyes were suddenly on him. “These members will go for a magazine photo-shoot tomorrow,” he announced, and then began to list off names, some of which Massu vaguely recognised. “Nakamaru Yuichi,” the man spoke after reading off three or so other names, and the boy beside him fist-punched the air. More names were read out, and Massu waited to hear his name, but then the man said, “and finally, Akanishi Jin.”  
  
One of the boys who had been chatting behind him let out a triumphant yell, while the one beside him slipped further down into his seat and frowned a little. Massu would later learn that his name was Kamenashi Kazuya, and like him, he was a trainee who had an uncertain start into the world of Johnnys.  
  
In the months that followed, Massu, who had always tried hard and been good at what he tried, was only called to work every few months, to the point where sometimes he almost forgot he was even a Johnnys Junior, but it was always at the back of his mind.  
  
Every month or so, a message would come through to his phone from one of the other boys he had stayed in contact with, reading “ _Hey, are you coming to the rehearsals tomorrow?_ ” and he would make some excuse, when really, he hadn't even heard about any rehearsals, just so that he didn't seem like a failure, even though that was what he felt inside.  
  
He always figured that things would eventually get better, but twelve years later, he still wasn't entirely convinced they ever had.  
  
 **April 18th, 2012**  
  
The timer on the recorder sitting between the pair was up to thirty minutes for this interview, and as of yet, barely a word had been spoken. Massu could be stubborn when he wanted to, and with the detectives asking him questions that he really didn't want to answer, things were at a stand still.  
  
"Okay, Masuda. Let me ask you something different," the detective decided. "Career-wise, when was the first time you felt  _really_  bad?"  
  
"Our group was suspended because of the actions of two ex-members," Massu told him without much hesitation. He figured it was eventually going to come to this.  
  
"So, before that, everything was pretty smooth?"  
  
"I wouldn't say that. But... Everyone had their issues. There were times when I felt a little left behind. The other kids would bring up things they had been invited to and I wouldn't know anything about them. And when I was able to do something, it always seemed like it was only me doing it because I was the only option available. The only one old enough. The only one with the right skills. The only one without anything more to do," he explained, and his tone was becoming a little bitter as all those feelings of being left behind started to come back to him. Perhaps, he thought, that was the beginnings of why he was sitting here now.  
  
"And then you debuted with NEWS. How was that?"  
  
Massu suddenly felt like he was doing an interview for a magazine, not a police interrogation. He was beginning to wonder why he was being made to answer all these questions, but thinking of it as a magazine interview made him more comfortable to open up further.  
  
"I felt like I wasn't supposed to be there. The others in the group were like my seniors at the time. And then there was Tegoshi. He was always the special one, he didn't have to work so hard. Even they were surprised that I was there, according to Shige. But... then Shige got it into his head - with what basis, I don't know - that he was the unpopular one and he didn't know where he fit in. We'd be rehearsing and suddenly he'd be crying. I wondered, if I did that, how would everyone react?"  
  
"How do you think they would have reacted?"  
  
"They would probably have thought something was  _really_  wrong."  
  
"But you didn't?"  
  
Massu shook his head. "Everyone liked to think they had a 'role'. I think it kept us going. Without me realising, my role had become 'happy'. I thought if I lost that, I'd feel just as useless as Shige thought he was."  
  
"It's hard to keep smiling when you feel like that, isn't it?"  
  
Massu nodded.   
  
"Everything builds up inside you until it has nowhere else to go but out."  
  
"It's beginning to make sense, ne?"  
  
The detective nodded. "So, about that suspension..."  
  
 **May 2nd 2006**  
  
 _"Regretfully, due to the circumstances, we have made the decision to suspend the group for the time being."_  
  
"It's not fair that we're getting punished for something they did, right?" Massu commented, in an indignant tone, once they were out of earshot of any of the higher-ups who might be able to hear them. He'd sat and bit his tongue like all the others when they had been in the meeting, but it really wasn't fair, and he wasn't going to pretend that it was.  
  
Koyama shrugged his shoulders lightly. "This is how it works sometimes," he told him sadly, and Massu could see his group mate's eyes starting to sparkle with tears. Unlike him, Koyama wasn't afraid of letting out his feelings in public, no matter how much he tried to be strong. "We can't do anything about it, we just have to wait and see what happens. It'll all work out okay, Massu."  
  
Massu knew that Koyama loved the group more than anything, and he just couldn't understand why Koyama wouldn't  _do_  anything. Massu would never approach Ryo with something like this, and it seemed to him right now that Ryo was just upset that he didn't have his friend in his group any more. Yamashita, their trusty leader, was already nowhere to be seen. Shige knew how he felt. He knew he did. Shige was like the outward personification of everything that Massu felt inside and couldn't say out loud.  
  
"Does anyone want to come out for a drink?" Tegoshi asked as he joined the group, looking as calm as usual.  
  
"I think I'm going to go home," Massu decided.  
  
Less than an hour later, Massu stepped into the home he shared with his family, glad to find that he was alone in the place. He didn't feel like wanted to face anyone right now, particularly not his proud mother. He hung up his jacket on a hook inside the door and put his shoes away in his shoe cabinet and padded through the building to his room. On his bed, was a pile of his clothes that his mother had washed for him that morning. He lifted a shirt from the top of the pile, and re-folded it to suit his liking. He carefully placed it into his closet, and then moved onto the next one, going through that same meticulous process of folding it perfectly and lying it flat in his closet. It was when he had reached the fifth item in the pile, a pair of jeans, that he realised how much his hands were shaking.  
  
He sat down on the corner of his bed beside the remaining pile of clothes, staring at his hands like he was seeing them for the first time. It had been a long time since he had been this worked up about anything, but Masuda Takahisa was a worrier, and suddenly, everything was so uncertain. How long would it be? Would they ever come back? What  _was_  he now?  
  
There was a framed photograph of himself and the rest of the group on the shelf beside his bed, and he stared at it, wondering how it could suddenly not be there any more. He didn't want to go back to how it had been before, wondering when his next chance would be. His vision blurred as he felt tears creeping into the corners of his eyes and it had been a long time since he had cried in private but he couldn't stop himself as he felt the tears begin to trickle down his cheeks. He shuffled up his bed, and flopped down with his head resting against his pillow. The other pillow on the bed was pulled close to his chest and he didn't know why he was holding onto it so tightly, but suddenly, everything became totally overwhelming to him and he broke down in sobs, the pillow becoming wet with his tears.  
  
 **May 17th 2006**  
  
" _Massu, when are we going to meet for drinks?_ "  
  
Massu reached over to his bedside table, picking up his phone as he heard the text alert. He read over the message, from Tegoshi, and put his phone back down without replying. He didn't like to think that he was wallowing in self pity, not when the rest of the group were going through exactly the same thing. However, he had been spending a lot of time recently at home, in his room, staring at the ceiling. He just didn't feel like going anywhere unless he really had to. Right now, aside from magazine interviews, he really didn't have a lot to do.  
  
He returned his gaze to his white ceiling, but a few moments later his phone beeped again. He ignored it the first time, but a few minutes, it beeped a second time as a reminder and he let out a frustrated sigh, lifting the phone up and holding it above his head to read.   
  
" _I'll forget what you look like._ "  
  
Massu let out a deep sigh and tossed his phone back on the bedside table. He felt bad, but right now, he wasn't interested in seeing anyone at all. He glanced across at the photograph of the group on his table, and reached over, picking it up and placing it face down.   
  
"Well that's okay," he spoke to himself, replying to Tegoshi's message in his head. "It looks like everyone else will, anyway."  
  
 **September 1st 2006**  
  
 _"We'd like the two of you to form a group together."_  
  
After several months of sitting around other barely any work, waiting for a decision on if and when NEWS' suspension would end, this was the last thing Tegoshi and Massu expected to be called into a meeting for. They'd sung together once before, they had technically been Tegomass before they had been part of NEWS, but as far as they had been concerned, that had always only been a temporary thing.  
  
It had been a long time since the pair had seen each other, and now awkward since Massu had mostly ignored all of Tegoshi's calls and messages (as well as those from other group members), this was the first time they had seen each other in over a month. Tegoshi thought that Massu looked tired. Massu thought that Tegoshi had somehow grown up in the past month.  
  
"What?" Tegoshi was the first to speak out. "Why now? What about NEWS?" he asked, and Massu sensed an indignant tone to his voice. He could understand. All this time they'd been waiting for news on if and when their group was going resume activities, and now suddenly they were part of a new one. It felt being back in their Junior days again, and for Massu that didn't feel like a good thing. What would happen after that? Would he be shifted somewhere else? Made to go solo? End up one of those members who only ever acted in a movie once every couple of years and disappeared for months in between?  
  
"Johnny wants a new unit to promote the agency internationally. He's planning on releasing your début single in both Japan and Europe."  
  
"Europe?!" Tegoshi exclaimed, and clearly he was starting to get excited by the prospect. Massu gave him an odd look across the table. Tegoshi gave him an apologetic look but Massu knew he was looking out for and excited by this new career prospect, and suddenly it seemed to catch on to him and he realised they were about to possibly become known in another country.  
  
He felt bad about NEWS, and very unsure, but he gave a firm nod, and confirmed, “lets do it.”  
  
 **April 18th 2012**  
  
"That must have been a good time for you," the detective commented. "After all that time with no activity."  
  
Massu shrugged a little. "You'd think so, right?"  
  
"It wasn't?"  
  
"Maybe you don't understand how these things work," Massu decided, leaning back in his seat. "Me and Tegoshi had worked together as Tegomass before NEWS even existed. I always wondered why. Johnny said that Tegoshi's voice was good. He said mine was 'interesting'. It's different, ne?"  
  
"But not necessarily bad."  
  
"True. I never really asked, and the staff did say our voices sounded good together. But after that comment, I always felt like I wasn't there for my voice."  
  
"Then why?"  
  
"You know, when we were juniors and we sung together, we didn't have an official name but the staff would sometimes refer to us as Masutego. Then, suddenly, we had our début and we were called Tegomasu. When I pointed it out, Tegoshi seemed a little embarrassed, but I told him it was okay that way round."  
  
"It bothered you?"   
  
Massu shrugged a little. "Tegoshi was the professional. He knew what he was doing with his voice and he always knew that I should be doing with mine too. I followed along and I did as I was told and... Since I've known Tegoshi I've always known he wanted to be better than everyone else. I sometimes felt like I was just the sidekick in his career plans."  
  
"I see."  
  
"As well as that, I felt like there was a lot of pressure suddenly on both of us. We felt if we did badly, then the dreams of the other four would fail. We were basically holding the weight of NEWS on our shoulders. It was a tough responsibility."  
  
"Did Tegoshi ever feel like that?"  
  
"If he did, he never said anything. Tegoshi has never been the kind to worry about things like that though. So long as he's doing well, nothing else matters to him."  
  
"Selfish, then?" the detective prompted.  
  
"Very."  
  
"You were bitter against him."  
  
“What are you trying to get me to say?” Massu frowned.  
  
“We just want to get to the truth,” the detective told him.  
  
“I wasn't bitter against him,” Massu spoke without much hesitation, staring the detective right in the eye to show he was telling the truth. He had folded his arms across his chest, and he could see another stand still coming on if the detective continued his questioning the way he was.  
  
“Then what?”  
  
Massu looked at the detective again, and his expression had become tense again. “I think you had better ask me something else, or we'll be here a long time,” Massu told him, and the detective nodded in confirmation and moved the questioning elsewhere.  
  
 **31st December 2006**  
  
“You had a great reaction!” Koyama told Tegoshi and Massu as they waited backstage for their cue to perform. The group were about to go on stage as a six member group for the first time since their hiatus, and the loud cheers they heard when Tegomass had been on stage performing their single  _Miso Soup_  gave them hope that they would get the same number of cheers when they went on stage in a few minutes, but no one knew quite how the opinion of them and their fan-base had changed since they had last been on stage together.  
  
They heard the voice of Joshima Shigeru on stage, announcing that there was a surprise in store. None of the fans knew that this appearance was going to be happening today, and as the man had them spell out the name of the group, announcement amongst the crowds began to grow until finally, the spotlight fell on the six members, and they broke into  _NEWS Nippon_  as the crowds cheers became wild.   
  
After a melody of three of their songs, the spotlight moved elsewhere, and the group headed off stage to await their next cue, giving each other high-fives, the grins almost breaking their faces.  
  
With his heart bursting with happiness and pride at the reaction of the fans and just at standing on that stage as NEWS for the first time in what seemed like decades, Massu suddenly realised why Koyama always said that he loved NEWS more than anything in the world.   
  
 **April 19th 2012**  
  
“Why is it that every time I mention Tegoshi's name, you want to change the subject?” the detective asked, starting to become unwilling to let Massu run how the questioning was going.  
  
“No comment,” Massu commented, and he was beginning to get a little tired of this. He wanted to go to sleep and he certainly didn't want to think or be made to talk about  _him_.  
  
 **22nd July 2009**  
  
"Don't you feel awkward, changing like that in the middle of the dressing room?" Massu asked Tegoshi as they prepared for the first date of their Tegomass no Uta tour, in Osaka, in the summer of 2009. It wasn't the first time he had witnessed Tegoshi, as well as his other group mates, parading around the dressing room half naked, but it was a lot less awkward to ask the question now there was only one person to direct it to.   
  
Massu had never been the kind to be particularly comfortable changing in public, even when it was just his other group members. He would forever be looking for a corner to hide in or a bathroom, or even behind the couch in the dressing room if there was really nowhere else available. The others had always thought it strange, but there were some things that he just wanted to keep private.  
  
"Well, it's just you, right?" Tegoshi shrugged as he slid off his jeans, hanging them loosely over the back of one of the couches, now wandering around in only a pair of designer boxer shorts as he bent over to hunt in his small suitcase for something to wear before it was time to change for the concert.  
  
Massu watched Tegoshi, somehow not able to help it. He could see why his group mate wasn't worried about being naked in public. He had never been overly confident about his own body even though he worked out and knew he had plenty of muscles, but he certainly didn't think he could compete with Tegoshi's slim waist and perfect legs. He went to stand up to start trying to prepare some more himself, but he just couldn't seem to turn away from looking at his group mate. He quickly realised he was staring at those things that he felt so jealous of and a moment later he wondered what it would be like to touch them.  
  
A blush crept up his cheeks, and he forced himself to turn his gaze somewhere else, grabbing at his clothes. "I'm going to go and take a shower," he told Tegoshi quickly, and disappeared into the dressing room's bathroom before the other could even reply.  
  
 **18th April 2012.**  
  
"We're going to be sitting here for a long time if you don't start talking again soon."  
  
"I said I don't want to answer any more questions right now."  
  
 **22nd July 2009**  
  
The concert that evening was the most awkward and difficult concert Massu had ever performed. Now he had those thoughts about Tegoshi in his mind he couldn't stop thinking about him. Every time Tegoshi so much as brushed past him his heart started to beat a little faster. Whenever did more, touching him like the fans loved so much, a blush crept up his cheeks as well, blushes that were luckily hidden under the heat of the lights they were under.   
  
When it came to an end, their last moment on stage took place holding hands as they thanked the fans who had come, and as Massu felt the other's hand in his own, he didn't want to let it go again. The lights dimmed, and they walked off stage hand in hand. Once they were out of sight of the fans, Tegoshi went to separate their hands, but Massu held on tightly.  
  
"What are you doing?" Tegoshi laughed, and all Massu could do was give the other's hand a shake and congratulate him on a great concert, before sheepishly forcing himself to let go. The warmth of Tegoshi's hand didn't leave his for a long time.  
  
 **August 7th 2009**  
  
On August 7th, Tegomass performed their concert in Sendai, in the midst of the city's Tanabata Matsuri celebrations. When Massu saw all of the decorations around the city on their way to the venue, he made his own silent wish, that whatever feelings he had started to have for Tegoshi would disappear as quickly as they had begun.  
  
Massu thought that this was something other people went through. It would be different if it was a girl, he knew. If it was a girl there was still a big chance nothing would ever go anywhere, but at least he would be  _normal_. At least he could talk about it with his friends. At least he could  _say_  something to Tegoshi and know there was a chance it would go okay even if his feelings weren't returned, because they were friends. He wasn't sure even their friendship could survive such a confession in these circumstances.   
  
In the month since he had first started to think about Tegoshi in that way, his feelings had exploded into more than he would ever have imagined. Suddenly it was like every outfit Tegoshi wore made him look magical, everything he said was hilariously funny or absolutely genius. If it wasn't so painful for him, he'd be starting to feel it was getting a little ridiculous, because this was Tegoshi Yuya and he'd known him for years and he was still the same selfish and spoiled brat he had always been.  
  
During the concert, as with every night, the pair took their seats and the lights dimmed, and they began a selection of emotional ballads. Massu had always thought that he acted the pain convincingly in his face as he sung, but tonight, as they sung  _Kushami_ , and the words truly did mean something to him, he suddenly realised he hadn't even come close. Technically, as it stood, a song about lost love didn't really apply to him, except that Massu felt like he had lost before he had even started. As he glanced across the stage at Tegoshi's fake pained expression, he wondered if Tegoshi had ever been in love with anyone but himself.   
  
 **20th August 2009**  
  
"Tegoshi, can I talk to you for a moment?"   
  
It was the last day of their tour, in Fukuoka, and, Massu knew, the last chance to say anything to Tegoshi id he wanted to do it completely in private. It was early morning, and there was two hours to go before their first show at twelve. Massu was sitting on the couch in their dressing room relaxing as Tegoshi sat nearby with a guitar and a piece of music which he kept adding things on in pencil. He realised it probably wasn't the best time to do this, but he couldn't hold it in any longer.  
  
Massu was nervous and unsure and had been building up to this for hours, but suddenly he wondered if he spoke out loud at all because Tegoshi, engrossed in the piece of sheet music he was looking at, turned to him and pointed to one of the notes on the paper. "What do you think of this?" he asked. "I don't think it's quite right."  
  
And Massu had learned that if you didn't get Tegoshi's attention immediately, it wasn't worth trying at all. He pushed his shaking hands into the deep pockets of his pants, and leaned forwards to take a better look. He didn't really understand those things as much as Tegoshi did, and standing so close to the other that he could smell his aftershave, he really wasn't concentrating on the paper either. "I'm not sure," he managed to speak after a moment. "I'll leave it up to you."  
  
Tegoshi nodded, and went back to focussing on what he was doing. He was about to open his mouth to start singing, when he realised that Massu was still hovering slightly behind him. "Oh! Sorry, did you want something?" he asked, as if he'd suddenly recalled that Massu had spoken to him before he'd distracted him with his music.  
  
"No, it's fine," Massu told him, all of his courage gone, and he knew he would probably never work up to it again.  
  
 **23rd August 2009**  
  
"Are you okay?" Nakamaru asked Massu as they sat in his apartment on a rare evening off, playing video games. He thought Massu seemed distracted by something but he wasn't one to tell him these things. He wondered if Massu had just been busy. He knew concerts didn't leave you with much free time. It had only been a few days since the last show, and it took a while to settle after that, he knew well. Massu also looked very tired, there were dark circles under his eyes, circles that could easily be hidden from the fans by make-up, but right now, were there and plain to see.  
  
"I'm fine," Massu replied as he pressed buttons on the game controller, and gave him one of those smiles he was so used to, the idol smile, but Nakamaru didn't buy it.  
  
"You don't have to smile for my benefit," Nakamaru commented to show that You need a break," Nakamaru decided. If the issue was that Massu was just busy, then a break should relax him, and if it was anything else, then Nakamaru thought there was nothing better for worries than to escape them for a few days. "You have a few days off soon right? We'll go on a trip. Okinawa."  
  
And that was it decided; Massu knew better than to argue with Nakamaru once he had an idea in his mind. "Okay," he nodded. "But let's make it great. I want to sit on my hotel balcony and watch the sea and drink."  
  
"It's a deal," Nakamaru agreed, and that was all the confirmation Nakamaru needed to begin planning their vacation.  
  
Massu left Nakamaru up to all the details. It was difficult for him to keep out of the planning when he was so particular about certain things, but he really didn't feel like putting his mind to something like that right now and he trusted his friend to plan properly. He had made sure to let Nakamaru know some specific things he wanted for their trip, but aside from that, he was practically clueless as they stepped off the plane in Okinawa. He had to admit, here, away from Tokyo and concert planning and Tegoshi he was already feeling more relaxed than he had been in a long time.  
  
They arrived late in the evening, heading almost immediately to bed for a good night's sleep, and it wasn't until the following day that as usual, everything began to crash down around Massu.  
  
"There's a wall, Yuichi."  
  
"What?" Nakamaru replied as he lay in bed on his side, his cellphone resting against his left ear. He was still half asleep, having been woken from a deep sleep by his phone ringing on the bedside table. He moved it momentarily away to check the time, and then returned it to his ear once again. "Massu, it's 6am."  
  
"I can't sleep with that wall there."  
  
"What wall?"  
  
"Outside the window. There's a wall."  
  
Nakamaru sighed and pulled the covers from his body, sitting up and standing wearily out of the bed. He was weary and confused by what Massu was saying but if the other was saying that there was a wall he should at least take a look and ensure the other wasn't stuck in some weird dream. He padded over to the window, and pulled back the curtains. His and Massu's rooms were next door to each other, and sure enough, the view out of their windows was the building next door, and it wasn't even a very attractive one.  
  
"Ah..." was all he could say, as he let out a tired yawn. He may have still been half asleep, but he couldn't deny remembering that Massu had wanted a view of the sea.  
  
"We have to move," Massu stated simply, as it it were just a case of picking up their things right now and walking into another room of their choice.   
  
Nakamaru checked the time in his phone to ensure he wasn't reading it wrong, and then put the phone back to his ear. "It's 6am..." he repeated.  
  
"I can't sleep with that wall there."  
  
"Massu, you slept all night didn't you?" Nakamaru chuckled, and then there was suddenly silence and he realised that Massu had hung up the phone.  
  
Nakamaru stared at his phone for a moment, wondering if that had all been a dream but the wall was still outside the window and he was definitely awake. He let out a sigh and stretched his arms above his head, another yawn escaping his lips. He hadn't been expecting a start this early on vacation. He tugged a t-shirt from the top of his suitcase to join the sweatpants he had been sleeping in, grabbed his key and left the room.  
  
Massu was still staring out of the window when the knock on the door came, and Nakamaru had to knock several times before the door opened and Massu let him inside, before turning and stepping back through the small corridor into the main part of his hotel room.  
  
"It's not a joke Yuichi, we need to move..."  
  
"I'll go down to the front desk later and see if they have any rooms facing the sea."  
  
"You can't go now?" Massu asked.  
  
Nakamaru sighed again. "It's 6am. Actually," he checked his watch. "It's 6.06am. They're busy sleeping."  
  
Massu flopped down on his bed with a thump, staring at the floor.  
  
"Is it really that important to you?" Nakamaru asked him seriously. The last time he had seen Massu this worked up was when he had gone to his apartment and accidentally knocked one of his jackets onto the floor.  
  
Massu nodded silently, and then looked miserably across the room towards the closet. "I'll have to pack and unpack all my things again. Yuichi, do you know how long that stuff takes?"  
  
Nakamaru didn't. He was more the kind to throw everything in and hope his suitcase closed at the end of it. "You unpacked already?" he asked in surprise. They'd arrived at 11pm and all  _he'd_  wanted to do was settle down in bed and get a good night's sleep.   
  
"Yes," Massu replied simply, although he didn't move from his position from the bed. Nakamaru stepped over to the small closet in the room and tugged it open. Inside, Massu's clothes were all hung up on hangers or folded meticulously on shelves. It was a moment later that he realised they also seemed to be arranged by colour.   
  
"Wow, that's pretty crazy," Nakamaru pointed out light-heartedly as he slid the closet doors closed again and turned back to his friend sitting on the bed. He was bad at picking up obvious things like this but after a moment he realised that Massu's head was now buried in his hands, hands that were shaking.   
  
"Massu?"  
  
"It's not crazy."  
  
As Nakamaru took a seat beside Massu on the bed, the feel of the mattress dipping down made Massu look up to see what he was doing. He immediately decided it was a mistake because it gave his friend a clear view of the tears welling up in the corners of his eyes that were beginning to spill down his cheeks. He looked embarrassed and humiliated but he couldn't seem to stop it.  
  
Nakamaru was silent for a few moments. It was a shock to him to see Massu, his friend - a man who seemed to have an eternal smile on his face - on the verge of completely breaking down in tears. For a minute, he was unsure of what to say, but finally he reached across and took Massu's left hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.  
  
"I'm sorry," he spoke softly. "I'll go and wait in the lobby until the reception desk opens," Nakamaru decided. "You can stay up here and start packing your things up, okay? We're moving rooms," he told him gently, the only thing on his mind right now to get them their sea-view room. He decided that right now, it was best not to push the other any further; if he could just get them their room, perhaps he could make his friend feel better. That had been the purpose of this trip after all. Sometimes, he just needed to remember to think before he spoke.  
  
 **20th September 2009**  
  
In September, Massu finally had his chance to be interviewed on  _Shounen Club Premium_. The interview brought back fears and bad memories from his uncertain Junior days, but more than that, it made him talk about Tegoshi to someone else, in a different sense than he'd had to for a while. The fact that his heart started to beat a little faster just because he knew the question was coming up said everything.  
  
"What is Tegoshi like?" he was asked by Kokubun Taichi, the last member of the group he was asked to speak about. Massu rolled his fingers nervously together as he thought about the best way he could answer the question.  
  
"Tegoshi? Tegoshi is part of Tegomass with me... He's the one I spend most of the time with because of that. Recently, we've been getting closer and closer."  
  
Closer and closer. What he didn't mention was that he himself had been getting closer and closer to Tegoshi while Tegoshi had remained mostly indifferent. Neither of them could deny that they had become better friends, but Tegoshi had no idea what Massu really wanted from him, and after his one failed attempt at telling the other how he felt, he knew that things had to stay that way.  
  
 **April 20th 2012**  
  
"You have a visitor," the guard informed him, and Massu glanced up to see a familiar figure stepping past the man into the room. Nakamaru Yuichi looked like he hadn't slept since the incident, and seemed a little nervous; Massu wasn't surprised. He stepped up to the table, and took a seat opposite him.  
  
"You didn't really do it, did you, Massu?" was Nakamaru's first question. It should have been obvious. He had heard the broadcast just as everyone else had, had sat and listened to it at home even though he already knew what announcement had been planned. But if Massu were to tell him that he hadn't, Nakamaru would believe him in a heartbeat.  
  
"I did," Massu told him, and he could almost physically see Nakamaru's heart sinking, all hope lost.  
  
"But... but,  _why_?"  
  
"I don't think I have an answer to that question just yet."  
  
"I'm sorry. I suppose you've had enough questions already, right? Did they finish interviewing you?"  
  
"No. We took a break because they wanted me to tell them something that I didn't want to tell them."  
  
"Can you tell me?"  
  
Massu shook his head immediately.  
  
"I can't hear any worse," Nakamaru pointed out.  
  
Massu bowed his head, and he seemed to be having real difficulty fighting to say something out loud that he had kept inside for so long. He cracked his knuckles nervously.   
  
"Take your time," Nakamaru told him gently. "I don't have anything better to do today."  
  
The silence was long. But no matter how long the clock ticked by, Nakamaru's patience never wavered even once. The guard told him it was soon time to leave several times, but Nakamaru simply sat and watched, waiting and hoping that Massu could finally tell him whatever it was that was on his mind that he clearly needed to get out before he could move on.  
  
"You never laughed at me, did you?" Massu spoke after what seemed like a long time.  
  
"Of course not."  
  
"Even when we went on that trip and I was so picky with everything. You just went along with it and did what I wanted."  
  
"You're my friend. Of course I did."  
  
"So... so if I tell you this, you won't laugh at me now either?" Massu looked up, looking right into Nakamaru's eyes, needing that reassurance that he wouldn't be a joke to Nakamaru like he seemed to be to everyone else.  
  
"No. I promise,” Nakamaru told him, looking back at him sincerely.   
  
There was silence again, as Massu looked back down at the table again. "I was really in love with him," he spoke quietly, and for the first time since he had been brought to the police station, there was a huge amount of emotion in his tone, and he could feel his eyes becoming damp.  
  
"With who?"  
  
"Tegoshi," Massu replied, and he felt his voice cracking. He looked up to try and read Nakamaru's facial expression, and then he continued. "I know it was wrong, he's a guy and I shouldn't have felt like that but I couldn't help it, I always thought about him, what I wanted to do... it scared me," he admitted.   
  
"Did you ever tell him how you felt?" Nakamaru asked calmly, not at all effected negatively by what Massu had just revealed, much to Massu's relief.  
  
"Once," Massu replied, and Nakamaru was about to question further, but the memories had already driven Massu to tears, and Nakamaru's hand had slid across the table to take hold of the other's.   
  
 **15th October 2010**  
  
Every time Massu saw Tegoshi, as much as he tried to stop them, a rush of feelings flowed through him. Whether it had been a couple of days or a couple of weeks, this silly "crush" that he had just didn't go away, to the point where he could no longer even consider it simply a crush at all, not after over a year. He didn't think he had ever been in love in the past, but that was what those feelings felt like to him now. He had heard someone once said that love was thinking about a person first in the morning, and last at night. Massu had long since passed that stage. He woke in the middle of the night, in an empty bed, from dreams where they were lying side by side with their hands entwined.   
  
With a single release quickly approaching, it was almost impossible to avoid his group-mate. Telling Tegoshi how he felt was always almost on the tip of his tongue even though he was sure, deep down, saying those words out loud could only end badly.   
  
In the lead up to the release of their long-awaited new single  _Fighting Man_  they were invited to appear on Music Station. Used by now to the show's set up, despite having not appeared on it since their last single, all Massu could think about as they got ready to appear, was at what points he would be close to Tegoshi, how he could possibly keep his feelings from showing on his face.  
  
And as they were interviewed, Massu's mind was far away from whatever topic it was they were discussing. Tegoshi wasn't even sitting beside him, but he could somehow still feel him.  
  
"Massu?" Koyama's voice broke through his thoughts, and he suddenly looked up, realising he had been asked a question asked or for a comment but he hadn't heard, too lost deep in his own thoughts.  
  
"I think I've fallen in love with you, Tegoshi," he suddenly blurted out. He hadn't meant to say it out loud but it was all that was on his mind, he said over and over again both when he was awake and when he was sleeping, and it had only been a matter of time before it came out loud. The odds of that happening on television were low, but Massu's usual lucky streak had failed him this time in the worst way possible.  
  
There was a momentarily silence. Then the studio audience began calling out, "ehhhh?"   
  
Tegoshi was first to laugh. That whole-hearted laugh he used when he really found something funny, throwing his head back, showing those sparkling perfect teeth. Massu's cheeks began to grow hot. He heard Koyama's distinctive laugh, Shige saying, "what was that?!" and he could hear Yamapi and Ryo sniggering. Soon, even the hosts and the other guests were laughing, and Massu wished the ground would open up below him so he could escape the situation. One thing was very clear, no one, not even Tegoshi, believed he was speaking the truth.   
  
"It's not a joke," Massu spoke quietly, but everyone was laughing too hard to hear and the camera wasn't on him. It seemed he hadn't been able to rid himself of his role as the one to be laughed at. As the laughter began to die down, he curved his lips in that familiar awkward stupid smile, and Tegoshi stood up from his seat and marched to Massu, giving him a light slap on the back of his head.   
  
"Sorry, sorry," he laughed, an expert at making it sound real, and before he could really think about it further the group were sent to the stage perform their single.  
  
\-------  
  
"I'm going to the bathroom," Massu told one of the producers. The group had gathered along with the other guests but Massu couldn't bear to be there on camera any longer with a smile on his face. He headed off the set, down a corridor back stage, and by the time he reached the door of the bathroom he was practically running. He had barely gotten the door of the stall closed, before he was blinking back tears. He put his head in his hands and rubbed at his eyes, and he could feel himself rubbing off his make-up which made him feel even more frustrated, but he couldn't stop his tears from flowing.   
  
It was his fault for saying it out loud like that, but he wondered, if Tegoshi had been a girl - which he wasn't, no matter how he might act like it sometimes - it would be as hard? Would they have believed him, then? Would they have at least told him it was cute, rather than making a big joke out it?   
  
He wondered if this might be the worst possible way to be different. He didn't mind most of the time that people thought he was different because of how obsessive he was about some things, because sometimes even he could think about how ridiculous some of them were, but this wasn't ridiculous, not to him. It was hard, and painful, and being laughed at about it was one of his worst fears, one which today had become slightly realized.   
  
Later that evening, he replayed the video of their interview over and over, pausing it every time on Tegoshi's face creased in laughter. It seemed  _that_  was what his friend thought about the possibility of him confessing to him. After that, he watched the part of the show he had missed by being in the bathroom, and as he glanced at the empty space where he should have been sitting, Tegoshi stood up and started singing and dancing along to KARA's  _Mister_ , and he couldn't tear his eyes away.   
  
 **April 20th 2012**  
  
"You know what it's like in concerts, or on TV right? We're meant to touch each other like we like each other more than we do. When I had to do things like that with Tegoshi, it felt awkward, and embarrassing, but I also felt like it was the only time I could ever do anything like that with him, so in that way I was grateful. But then we toured with NEWS, and it wasn't just him any more. Every time I did anything with any of the others, or when they did it to me, I felt like I was violating them somehow."  
  
"You liked them too?" Nakamaru asked. His visit should have ended an hour ago, but he had refused to leave until the pair of them had finished talking and the detectives seemed to be hoping he would be able to create some kind of breakthrough, not that Nakamaru would reveal their conversations even if they did.  
  
"No... but, I was so confused. I hadn't felt that way before, not about a guy. Whenever we were doing things like that in concerts I would be trying to see if I felt the same way, or if it was just Tegoshi."  
  
"But they never figured anything was different?"  
  
"It didn't seem any different. It was just me who was different, and we did those things anyway, it was just inside my head that was a mess. But..." he trailed off, and seemed a little awkward about what he was going to say next. "Have you ever felt like one of your members has done something that you didn't like?"  
  
Nakamaru thought about the question for a moment, wanting to give the other a proper answer, and then gave a small nod. "Sometimes, Kamenashi leans forwards to kiss me when we're on camera. I think if I didn't move out of the way, he'd actually do it." He stopped, wondering why they were suddenly talking about him, and added, "why do you ask?"  
  
 **September 28th 2010.**  
  
Encores were always somewhat a free-for-all. With the rigid dance moves they performed most of the rest of the concert in, it was nice just to be able to run around and be free and silly. The cameras were filming the show that night, the last night of the tour, to eventually create a DVD, and the group members had been told to remember them while they were performing.  
  
And they did.   
  
In fact, once they figured out where a camera was, it was difficult to keep them away from it. The group split into two halves, and with Koyama, Yamapi and Tegoshi hogging one of the cameras close to the ground, while Massu, Ryo and Shige chose another, all with arms over each other's shoulders, pulling silly faces as they sung. The group led by Massu quickly got bored and as they moved away, and spotted by Koyama, who led his group over to join them, and Shige and Massu backed right into them, putting a halt to Ryo who glanced round to see where the hold up was.   
  
He met Massu's eyes, and with a mischievous glint in his eyes decided to take advantage of their close proximity. With Massu backed up against Shige who was backed up against Koyama, Yamapi and then Tegoshi, there was nowhere to go as he suddenly felt a hand between his legs and as he looked up at Ryo's face again, he felt the hand cupping and squeezing him hard, and then the hand was gone so quickly that Massu wondered if it had even happened at all before he realised the satisfied grin on Ryo's face could only mean one thing.  
  
"Woah!" Massu exclaimed, right into his microphone, and he momentarily he couldn't hide the shock from his face. He shot Ryo a strange look, and then he had to sing again, and Koyama was poking at his face and everyone was being silly again, and Ryo had practically already forgotten that he had done it.   
  
Massu, however, couldn't get it out of his head. He forced his way through the rest of the song and through the next, and he just wanted to get off the stage now and speak to the other about it, and the songs seem to go on forever, but finally, they were able to leave the stage.  
  
"That was out of order..." Massu told Ryo gently but a little indignantly as they headed off stage following their first encore. He had managed to hide it pretty well but it had hurt and been humiliating and he was fuming. He didn't often let out his anger, but he just couldn't not say anything.  
  
"What was?" Ryo asked, a little surprised, and his body tensed up a little. It wasn't often that Massu spoke to him or anyone like that.  
  
"Touching me  _there_  like  _that_. It hurt."  
  
"Oh," Ryo responded, and his shoulders loosened up a little. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it so hard."  
  
"You shouldn't have done it at all..." Massu told him.  
  
"I'm sorry, I didn't know it would bother you that much... I won't do it again," Ryo promised, and put a hand gently on Massu's shoulder.  
  
"Is that it?"  
  
"What else do you want me to do?"  
  
"I... I don't know," Massu realised, and suddenly he felt bad that he was being so over the top about it, but he couldn't help holding a grudge even though although it  _had_  hurt, the rest of the issues were his and his alone. As he was about to open his mouth to try and make an excuse, a staff member called them to return to the stage once again.  
  
Koyama, Shige were already on the stage when Massu stepped onto the stage, with Ryo just ahead of him. Massu turned his head a little to avoid the lens of the camera Shige was holding, because he still hadn't quite managed to rid himself of the humiliated look that had formed from his conversation with Ryo, and he knew the camera wouldn't lie.   
  
Yamapi was the next to climb up back onto the stage, dressed in a tuxedo, cape and mask. Massu wondered for a moment where their sixth member was, but his question was answered in the worst way possible when Tegoshi bounced onto the stage dressed in a white and blue maid outfit. It seemed that Massu had missed a lot while he had been standing talking to Ryo.   
  
A sinking feeling came to Massu's stomach as he watched Tegoshi shaking his hips, because for a moment he felt like it was completely normal for him to be looking at Tegoshi the way he was, because all the other members almost seemed to be doing the same thing. Then Tegoshi linked arms with Yamapi, and the moment passed. He let the pair head down one of the walkways, and turned away, unable to keep his feelings from his face as he sang his first line in the song, unable to look round and sneak a glance at him once again.   
  
Suddenly not wanting to be near anyone, he headed down the walkway in the centre of the stage on his own, trying to keep from glancing at the pair at the opposite end by waving at the fans on either side of him, planting that smile back on his face, knowing he only had to focus until the end of this song.   
  
It was when he finally reached the centre stage that he realised he had been followed by Koyama, who was now standing beside him and waving to the fans with him, and a moment later their arms were linked too and Koyama gave him a look like he knew exactly what was going on.  
  
Massu wouldn't have been surprised if he did, because Koyama seemed to always eventually know what was happening with members of the group, and Massu lowered his gaze so he wasn't meeting his gaze any more. Koyama patted him on the shoulder to show him that everything was okay, and Massu felt like he might cry right there in the middle of the stage. He knew if he did, it would almost be expected, because it was the last night of their tour, but he couldn't do it.  
  
He glanced at the fans again, people still happy and lively and glad to see them even after almost three hours, and and he glanced at Koyama again and smiled, arm back round his shoulders, and the pair continued their walk together, before doing a silly march in the middle of the stage, and Koyama burst into laughter, patting Massu's shoulder again, and Massu grinned back and suddenly they were going crazy together in front of the fans. That was what it was all about, after all.   
  
As they walked off the stage at the end of the night for the final time, Koyama called out Massu's name and gave him a worried glance.  
  
“It's okay,” he told Koyama with a nod and that familiar smile, and Koyama backed down, never the kind to want to push or have an argument about anything.

**20th April 2012**  
  
"We've been sitting here for nearly two days, Masuda. At the beginning of the first interview I asked you why you did what you did and you told me you didn't know. What would you say if I asked you again now?"  
  
"I still don't know."  
  
"People usually kill people they have a grudge against. Did you have a grudge against the other members?"  
  
"I don't think so."  
  
"Did they do something to you?"  
  
Massu was silent.  
  
"Anything. Even just a little thing."  
  
 **5th August 2007**  
  
NEWS were invited to appear on  _Shounen Club_ 's  _Abake_  segment in 2007, a part of the show where members of groups were able to reveal their deepest opinions of each other while having their voices disguised and wearing blindfolds. All of the members knew that if one of them really had a problem with another member, they'd either discuss it with them or keep it to themselves, but certainly wouldn't reveal it on a television show. It was all in good fun, and everyone knew that.   
  
When the question of things the members wanted others to fix, Massu was feeling pretty smug as he sat and heard his fellow group members talked about, but suddenly, one of those high-pitched voices spoke his name.   
  
"Just before, Masuda-kun was eating his lunch. Right after he finished eating it, like 10 minutes later, he said 'umm... I ate lunch just now but do you think it's better if I took some medicine?' For something like that, I have no idea, you idiot!"  
  
Although his voice was disguised, it wasn't difficult to know who it was who was speaking, because Massu could remember having that exact conversation with Yamapi earlier on that day. A pout fell onto his face, and he immediately spoke up so quickly that Nakamaru had to run across the stage to him to warn him to raise his hand before speaking.   
  
"It's not like I wanted to ask everyone about when I'm supposed to take the medicine. I just wanted to talk to everyone," Massu defended himself, not caring that he was revealing who he was.   
  
"I see..."  
  
"So I went to the topic of medicine."  
  
"You wanted to have something to talk about."  
  
"Yes. That," Massu nodded firmly, and the conversation ended there as Nakamaru moved onto the next question.  
  
 **21st April 2012**  
  
"You remember that, right?" Massu asked Nakamaru the next time man came to visit him, and Nakamaru was silent for a moment as he thought it through, and then he nodded to confirm that he remembered.  
  
"And Yamapi also once said that sometimes I ignored him when I was eating. But when I tried to make conversation, I was an idiot. So I couldn't win. I know that Yamapi didn't mean me to take it so seriously, not on a show like that, but I worry about these things. I want to get along with people, and I don't want them to think I'm an idiot.”  
  
“Are you sure that's what they thought?”  
  
“Sometimes during MCs, they would look at me like they expected me to say something awkward or tell a bad joke to get laughs. In the end I had to start doing it whether I wanted to or not, because otherwise everything just went quiet and people were looking at me anyway.”  
  
“We do that to Taguchi sometimes...” Nakamaru pointed out, and suddenly there was a frown on his face. That was all for laughs too, but he hadn't really considered how the recipient might actually feel about it.  
  
Massu leaned back in his seat. “You should check his bag for knives,” he said a little too bluntly.  
  
“Massu...”   
  
“I'm sorry,” Massu apologised, and leaned forwards again. “Do you play pranks on him too?”   
  
Nakamaru nodded slowly, and now suddenly his mind was filled with the thought of him and the rest of his group being brutally murdered on live television. He shook the thought from his mind for now, and glanced back at Massu as he felt like this conversation was all leading to something else.  
  
 **27th December 2007**  
  
With concerts at three venues already completed, the group were getting gradually used to the staging used on their tour, and although there were slight changes that would require a full day's work before the concert to work out, with one free day between their Fukui and Nagoya concerts, they had arrived in Nagoya that morning and planned to spend the day relaxing in their hotel.   
  
Massu had been disgruntled to learn that he would have to share a room with Tegoshi, as only three rooms had been booked for the group. Koyama had immediately claimed a room with Shige, and Yamapi and Ryo had insisted they get to be together, so Massu was stuck with Tegoshi who left things in places and moved things around and tossed and turned and sung in his sleep. He supposed at least it was only two nights, and he could deal with that, just about.  
  
As soon as they'd arrived at the hotel and he had unpacked and organised all of his things Massu had headed down to the gym for a work out, and when he returned to his room he found that Tegoshi had left all his own things lying around and had headed out somewhere. Massu was itching to sort it all out for him, but he was almost glad that Tegoshi wasn't here because it meant he could shower in private.  
  
Somehow he knew something was wrong as soon as he entered the bathroom. He climbed into the bathtub underneath the shower, and glanced at the small shelving unit beside it, where he'd put his things earlier. Shampoo on the left, and then conditioner, and then body soap. Except that now, his shampoo was on the right and the conditioner was on the left and the body soap was squashed up in between them, and it was all wrong.   
  
He climbed back out of the shower and stared at it for a moment, as if he were going mad, and then he reached out and put them back in the right order, before clambering back into the shower once again. He pulled the curtain shut and turned on the water, relaxing underneath it and just letting the water run over him for a few minutes. Then, he stuck his hand out of the curtain and grabbed the first bottle his hand came to, his shampoo, and without opening his eyes, squeezed some onto his hand and then set the bottle down and began to massage the liquid into his hair. He knew the moment he started that something was wrong. It didn't smell right and it didn't lather properly, and he quickly realised he had just covered his hair in his body soap.   
  
He washed it all out, and then he turned off the shower and climbed back out of the tub, rubbing at his eyes before glancing at the shelf once again. Sure enough, now he looked at it, there was a gap on the left where his shampoo should have been, where he had taken the bottle from, but the shampoo was sitting on the right, with his conditioner on the left. He picked up his bottle of body soap and stared at it, confusion pouring through his mind because he knew he had just set them right a few minutes before. H even started to panic a little as he set the bottles back in order again, because he didn't understand how they could suddenly have moved on their own.  
  
He set them right once again, and for the third time, climbed back into the shower, pulling the curtains closed. In the few moments that followed before he turned the shower water back on, he heard the bathroom door creak open, and heard a familiar giggle.  
  
“Tegoshi?”  
  
He quickly pulled the curtain back enough to peek round it and spotted his room-mate, mid way through rearranging his bottles once again. “What are you doing?” Massu asked, frowning a little, not amused in the slightest. No wonder he'd thought he was going mad.  
  
“Sorry, Massu,” Tegoshi replied with a grin once he realised he'd been caught, and set the bottle he was holding down on the shelf again, before giving Massu a mischievous grin and leaving the room.   
  
Massu stared at his bottles, and wondered if he really  _could_  deal with this for two nights, and also wondered if perhaps he really was going mad.  
  
 **28th December 2007**  
  
When he awoke the next morning, he could hear Tegoshi already awake and rummaging around the room. The afternoon before, Massu had spent a lot of time sorting out Tegoshi's things into some kind of acceptable order, and he assumed therefore that his room-mate was looking for something and couldn't find it. It was as he was about to open his eyes and ask the other what it was he wanted since he knew where everything was, when he heard another familiar voice.  
  
“I think he's waking up,” the voice spoke, and Massu was suddenly a little concerned.  
  
“It's okay, I've finished,” Tegoshi replied to the other man with a laugh.  
  
“Done what?” Massu spoke, and sat up suddenly in his bed. Tegoshi was crouched on the ground beside his bed and as he looked past him, he realised that one of his shirts was on the floor. Then he realised, to his horror, that  _all_  his shirts were on the floor, along with his pants and underwear and everything that he had neatly arranged in the hotel room's closet the day before. Shige was sitting at the other end of a trail of his things leading from the door to the bathroom, his grin just as cheeky as Tegoshi's.  
  
“Surprise~!” Shige laughed, but Massu wasn't laughing at all. He jumped out of bed faster than he ever had before, and knelt down, immediately beginning to pick up his clothes, his palms starting to sweat. “It took me so long to sort all these clothes out...” he said, not even able to bring himself to try and be relaxed about the situation, and it was made worse by the fact that Tegoshi and Shige seemed to be finding the whole situation hilarious.  
  
“Shige? Are you in here?” a voice spoke from outside the room, and Shige leaned over, pulling on the door handle until Koyama was revealed outside the room. Upon witnessing the scene in front of him, Koyama immediately joined in with the laughter.  
  
Massu glanced out of the door, at everyone laughing at him, and stood up to his feet. He really wanted to get on with re-organising his clothes, but he was getting to the point where he didn't want to be surrounded by people laughing a the fact that they'd just messed with all of his things.   
  
He climbed to his feet, set the clothes he'd picked up down on his bed in a neat pile, and stormed into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him. He had no doubt that the others really had no idea how this would effect him, but as they all crowded at the door, knocking on it and calling his name, he could barely hear their apologises over the sound of his heart beating loudly in his chest and the laboured breaths escaping his throat, struggled through his panic as he thought of all of his clothes out there lying on the carpet.  
  
 **October 6th 2011**  
  
"I've been causing you guys a lot of trouble," Ryo spoke apologetically as the group sat round a table shortly after their monthly interviews for Myojo magazine. Ryo had called this little gathering himself, and no one seemed to know why. Although they could all hope it was something good, the worried look on their group-mate's face told them otherwise. "When we had our tour last year I was always late for rehearsals because of my other work and making it harder on you to practice yourselves. And because of my schedule with Kanjani 8, things have been at a stand-still with NEWS again. Not only that, trying to do both has just become too difficult for me. It's too much work, and I've been exhausted and sick all of the time. So, for these reasons, I've made the decision to -"  
  
"Ryo..."  
  
"I wanted to tell you all before it was announced to the public, but the details have already been sent to the press. I'm announcing my withdrawal from NEWS. From now on, I'm going to concentrate on being part of Kanjani 8."  
  
There was silence all around the group. They had lost so many members over the years, but things like that never really got any easier. Not when it was people they had spent so much of their time with and their energy on. No one spoke up, no one tried to persuade Ryo otherwise, because it was clear from his words that he had already finalised the decision.  
  
Eventually, Koyama spoke up with a nod. "I understand," he said quietly, although his lips were quivering slightly. For someone who considered NEWS to be one of the most important things in his world, this felt once again like everything was crashing down around them and he couldn't hide that he looked like he wanted to burst into tears. However, Ryo  _looked_  tired, and it wasn't right to make him feel guilty about not wanting to feel that way any more.  
  
Once Koyama had given his blessing, it seemed like the others knew Koyama was usually right when it came to these things, and they nodded.   
  
Tegoshi's lips were formed into a small pout, but he remained calm, as he always did. Some might have wondered if he was simply pleased that there was one less person to compete with but Tegoshi wasn't that harsh, and just sometimes, friendship was more important than rivalry. This was about supporting one of their now former group members. "Good luck," he told the other seriously, his way of giving his blessing, and Shige nodded silently to show that he agreed.  
  
Massu hid his hands under the table, and bowed his head a little to try and hide as much of his reaction as he could. His hands were shaking, and the expression on his face was somewhere between worry and hurt and anger. Their future had been uncertain for months, and while there was the possibility this could go either way, right now, Massu could only see doom and gloom.   
  
Ryo glanced around the group members, gathering their reactions, accepting each and every thought that he was sure was in their minds - he had always known this wouldn't be easy. He glanced to the man sitting next to him, Yamashita Tomohisa, giving him a nod, signalling that he had finished what he needed to say, knowing that he also had his own announcement to make.  
  
"With that," Yamashita started nervously - it was always hard going second. "I also have an announcement to make. I have also decided to withdraw from NEWS to focus on my solo career," he told them simply. "My withdrawal will be announced alongside Ryo's." He wasn't as good with words as Ryo was, and he knew he didn't have such a good reason for wanting to part from the group. Just his own dreams. He could only hope that the rest of the group would understand him too.  
  
"You're our leader, Yamapi..." Koyama spoke up immediately, and even he couldn't try to hide his disappointment this time.   
  
Yamashita shrugged a little. "I never really did anything as a leader. We always worked as a team, right?" he replied very nonchalantly, as he always seemed to be. "I've thought about it a lot before coming to this decision. You'll be fine without me," he told them, giving them a reassuring smile. "I know you will."  
  
Massu glanced at his hands under the table. His hands were still shaking, but now clenched into fists. He pulled back his chair, and stood up. "I'm going to the bathroom," he told the group quietly, and left the room.  
  
He'd gotten very used to escaping from situations that he didn't like by excusing himself. Of course, it hadn't gone by without being noticed, and the rest of the group were under the impression that Massu would go to the bathroom and punch a few walls or let out his anger in some way like that. Massu never got angry in public but they all knew  _everyone_  got angry some times, so it made sense that Massu would go elsewhere when he was.   
  
However, when Koyama entered the bathroom five minutes later to look for him, once everything that needed to be said had been said, it wasn't sounds of anger he heard coming from the cubicle in the corner.  
  
“Massu,” he spoke, to confirm that it was him there. The man in the cubicle didn't reply, but Koyama stepped forwards and took a seat on the other side of it, leaning against the door. “Don't think you're the only one who feels like this,” he told him softly, and Massu, who wasn't sure anyone had ever known how he was really feeling, broke down further into tears.   
  
A moment later, Massu heard Koyama sniffing through the door, and he wondered, if Koyama who always seemed so strong and positive to him couldn't handle it, how would he?  
  
\--------  
  
When Massu arrived back home, he decided the best thing he could do in this situation was distract himself by sorting out his closet. He pulled all of his clothes out, and then sorted them back in, arranging them by colour as he always did. Halfway through returning the clothes to his closet he came across a shirt that was practically half black and half red, and he agonised for half an hour over whether it should go with the red clothes or the black ones. Eventually he decided that it should have its own category, but quickly realised that lots of his other clothes had two or more colours on as well. He put them all in their own categories and hung them back up, and was satisfied for a moment before he realised that now, it all looked like a disorganised mess. He pulled everything back out and began to sort by colour once again, but was soon hit again by the dilemma of what to do with his black and red shirt.  
  
Before he knew it, the sun was coming up outside his window, and he was sitting on his bed surrounded by the entire contents of his closet. He couldn't control what was happening in his career, but he could - or he'd thought he could - at least control the contents of his closet. Now he was surrounded with his entire wardrobe and he didn't even know what to do with any of them any more than he knew what to do about anything else.  
  
 **October 25th 2011**  
  
" _I'm worried about Shige_ ," a message came through to Massu's phone as he lay face up on his bed staring at the ceiling. " _He's shut himself away in his apartment. We should go and visit!_ " 'We' - he realised after checking who the message had been sent to - was himself, and Tegoshi.  
  
Massu set his phone back down again without replying. Everyone was always worried about Shige. Massu worried about Shige too. However, he didn't see that what Shige was doing was any different than what he himself had been doing for the past week or so, and he wondered if anyone thought of worrying about him. No one had turned up at his door to find out if he was still alive.  
  
His phone beeped again.  
  
" _Lets go tomorrow!_ " Tegoshi had replied to the pair, and suddenly it didn't feel like he had much of a choice.  
  
 **October 26th 2011**  
  
Shige didn't seem overly happy that the three other members of NEWS had invaded his apartment, but for a while now, there had been an unwritten rule that none of them wanted the members coming over and messing up their things, so that wasn't surprising. What was surprising was that despite the fact that Shige's apartment didn't look like it had been cleaned in a month, and that there were empty cartons of instant noodles piled up everywhere, Shige looked happier than he had for a long time. It seemed Koyama's worries had been unjustified.  
  
"Can I clean your apartment?" Massu asked the moment he stepped into the living room.  
  
Shige just laughed. "What are you doing here?" he asked reluctantly inviting them to take seats on the couch. He had to stop Tegoshi from putting his feet up on his coffee table.  
  
All eyes turned to Koyama, and he shrugged a little. "I was worried about you, shutting yourself away and not answering my calls."  
  
"I've been writing a novel," Shige suddenly blurted out. "I finished it yesterday, actually," he admitted.   
  
"A novel?!" Koyama exclaimed, and sounded deeply impressed.   
  
Shige quickly headed to his kitchen and pulled out a bottle of iced tea from his refrigerator, then returned with that and four glasses, setting them down on the coffee table and planting himself on the arm of the couch himself since the cushions were all taken. "It went to the publishers yesterday."  
  
"Wow..." Koyama gushed, almost speechless. "What is it about?"  
  
"Wait until the announcements are made," Shige told them with a smile.   
  
"Do you have any wine?" Tegoshi asked Shige, swirling his iced tea around in its glass. He felt that this deserved something a little more extravagant.   
  
Shige shook his head. "I have beer?"  
  
"That'll do," Tegoshi told him, and he had already stood up and was on his way to the kitchen.  
  
"So, Novelist Kato Shigeaki, do you still feel like you're the most useless member?" Koyama asked him curiously. The grin on his face was almost breaking out of his cheeks and he was already imagining himself curled up in bed in the evening reading his best friend's book over. He didn't even care what it was about. He would read it. Multiple times.  
  
Shige shrugged. "I guess not so much any more," he admitted. He hated to admit it out loud but he was proud that he had managed something like this, relieved that he finally had something he could call  _his_.  
  
"Well, I'm not useless! I'm the best singer. And the best looking, of course," Tegoshi pointed out, and no one argued because they knew that it was both true and that Tegoshi would whine if they said otherwise.  
  
"You guys say I'm like the mother, and everyone needs a mother, right?" Koyama added. "Massu?"  
  
"Um."  
  
"He folds up our clothes for us in the dressing rooms?" Shige suggested helpfully, giving Massu a glance.  
  
"Ahhhh! Yes," Koyama exclaimed with a triumphant fist in the air. "Here's to being a group of useful people," he spoke out, and pulled the tab on his beer and held it out for a toast. Quickly, the other three followed, and there was the sound of metal against metal as they all cheered.  
  
Massu took a sip from his can, and wished the ground would open and swallow him up.  
  
 **December 31st, 2011**  
  
For the second time in their career, on December 31st 2011 NEWS made their comeback, this time as a four member group. For Johnnys members, the annual countdown concert marking the new year was the most anticipated for both the fans and the idols. Appearing live for the first time in over a year at that concert was a nerve-wracking thing even for a group who had done it before.   
  
"What do you think the reaction will be like?" Shige asked, his forehead wrinkled in concern as they waited backstage for their cue.   
  
"Don't worry, they'll love us," Tegoshi reassured Shige in a calm tone.  
  
"Ahhhh, I've almost forgotten what this feels like~" Koyama exclaimed happily. If Shige was nervous, Koyama was certainly making up for it with his excitement. He was like a child at Christmas who couldn't keep still and kept looking at his watch to see if it was almost time to go on stage. He just wanted it to be time already.  
  
Massu was smiling too, but the atmosphere was tense. As much as everyone was enthusiastic, Massu knew none of them  _really_  knew how things were going to go. Even Tegoshi, who thought he did, had no idea, Massu thought. As they stood there waiting, he thought he heard someone speak in his earpiece, or perhaps he just wanted to get out of the stressful situation the others were creating backstage. Either way, suddenly he had parted from the others and was making his way up the steps onto the stage.   
  
The crowds cheered, and when Massu looked round to see where the other three members were, he suddenly realised his mistake. On stage, a performance was taking place. A performance neither he or the other members of NEWS were a part of. A blush crept up his cheeks, and as people screamed his name, he turned and sheepishly returned to his other group members downstairs.  
  
The little mishap seemed to have calmed Shige's nerves a little, and there was a slight grin on his face as he gave Massu a light slap around the back of his head. "Idiot," he told him.   
  
"Yeah," Massu replied, and his eyes turned to slits as he returned Shige's grin. Sometimes, he wondered if he'd learned to smile like that so people wouldn't realise that it wasn't reaching his eyes.   
  
When he opened his eyes fully again, Tegoshi was at the bottom of the stairs, looking round at the group. "Okay guys, this is it!"   
  
 **April 20th, 2012**  
  
"And how did it go?" the detective asked.  
  
"They loved us," Massu replied.  
  
"So Tegoshi was right."  
  
Massu paused for a moment, and then nodded. "He always is."  
  
"He didn't think that you would pull out a knife on a live radio show though, did he?"  
  
Massu shrugged, but said nothing.   
  
"So, aside from you mistaking your cue, the evening went smoothly?"  
  
"Mostly."  
  
"Mostly?"  
  
 **December 21st 2011**  
  
Countdown was a live event, with a lot of people, and with varying amounts of rehearsal time. Everyone knew that, but that didn't stop everyone from wanting to be perfect. And for Massu, after one mistake already, he had even harder to work.  
  
Massu waited backstage alongside Tegoshi and various members of other groups, watching the performance happening on stage in front of them and waiting for their next cue.   
  
"Ready?" Tegoshi asked him, flashing one of those sparkling smiles, the ones he often used when he was about to go on stage.  
  
"Of course," Massu nodded firmly, but he didn't know if it was Tegoshi's smile, or his lack of rehearsal time, or something else, but suddenly, he didn't know any of his dance moves. "Tegoshi -" he started, feeling he ought to say something, but before he had chance to continue, Tegoshi had grabbed his hand and was pulling him up the stairs, ready to go on stage.  
  
The lights were blinding as they always were, and the whole place was filled with noise, and it was fine so long as you weren't trying to figure out what you were doing. However, as Tegoshi separated from him and went to his own side of the stage, the dance began, and Massu did his best, but only a couple of moves later, he was left standing still amongst his colleagues, unable to do anything but laugh.  
  
He stepped to the side with some of the others as those in the middle kept up their routine. As they knelt in their respective positions, Massu caught Tegoshi's eyes across the stage. His group mate, perfect perfect Tegoshi who had gotten every single one of his moves correct despite being equally absent at rehearsals due to their own tour, was staring at him with a look that seemed to be questioning if he was okay, but angry at the same time. Massu forgot sometimes that as a group, they were almost one entity. What made one look silly, made the other look stupid as well.  
  
As the routine continued, he tried his best, for Tegoshi's benefit. But now he knew that someone was watching - he seemed to have forgotten about the thousands in the crowd and those watching live on television - he could remember even less, and he went along as best he could with the others right to the end. As they walked off opposite ends of the stage, Massu looked back, but Tegoshi wasn't even looking at him.  
  
Tegoshi came to find him as soon as he had made his way backstage, that familiar pout on his face that Massu knew meant he was in trouble. Considering how much time they spent with each other, they actually managed to get through without arguing too much, but when it happened, it always made Massu feel smaller than he already sometimes did.  
  
"What was that?" Tegoshi asked indignantly, his hands on his hips.   
  
"I'm sorry," Massu spoke apologetically, and wiped beads of sweat from his forehead with a towel. "I lost it."  
  
"You can't lose it, Massu. Not tonight, remember? This is our dream. My dream, Kei-chan and Shige's dreams. Your dream. The four of us."  
  
"I know. I'm sorry," Massu told him again, not sure what else he could say. "I'll try harder next time."  
  
"Did you do this on purpose?" Tegoshi frowned, and Massu could tell the other didn't think he was taking this as seriously as he was. "Why do you always have to be the idiot?"  
  
"Because -" Massu started, but Tegoshi had already been called away, and was stepping away for a quick outfit chance. "Because that's what you guys made me," he said quietly, so quietly no one else could hear as he watched Tegoshi, still looking annoyed, quickly changing himself into his second outfit.  
  
"Massu," a voice spoke from nearby and interrupted his thoughts; one of the staff holding an outfit out towards him. "You need to change as well."  
  
He forced a smile onto his face, and gave a nod. Tegoshi was right. He couldn't lose it, not right now.  
  
 **April 2nd 2012**  
  
“I'd almost forgotten what you looked like,” Nakamaru laughed as Massu opened the door to find him standing on his doorstep. Nakamaru had a wide grin on his face that showed he was happy to see his friend, and Massu broke into a smile as well. With KAT-TUN currently on tour, and Massu finally doing currently secret work with NEWS again, their free time was rare.  
  
“What are you doing here?” Massu asked. He hadn't expected to see his friend until his group's tour had finished.   
“We're in between venues, the end of March was Hokkaido, and we go to Fukuoka on the 6th, so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to come back to Tokyo for a couple of days. And then I realised that we didn't go on our shrine visit yet, so I figured we ought to do that,” Nakamaru explained as Massu let him inside and he tugged off his shoes in the doorway and hung his jacket on a hook inside the door, as he knew the other liked him to do.  
  
“Yeah, I guess we're a little late, huh?” Massu laughed in reply as he wandered back through to the living area, taking a seat on the couch and beckoning for the other to join him.  
  
“I also wanted to bring you this,” Nakamaru added, and handed the other a small black gift bag.  
  
When Massu pulled the tape from the top and glanced inside, he smirked a little and pulled out a copy of KAT-TUN's  _Chain_  album.  
  
“I did promise you, remember?”  
  
“I do,” Massu nodded, looking over the packaging.   
  
“Nakamaru-kun looks so cool...” Massu laughed as he looked at the cover.  
  
“I signed it for you and everything,” Nakamaru told him.   
  
“So I see,” Massu replied with a nod, seeming impressed. He set the CD back in the bag for now, and stood up. “Do you want a drink?” he asked.  
  
“No, because then we'll sit and have drinks and then decide it's too late to go to the shrine. Lets go now,” Nakamaru decided firmly, standing up as well, and Massu could hardly argue with that because he knew it was true.  
  
They decided to walk to a shrine close to Massu's apartment, and as they walked up the steps Massu already knew what he wanted to wish for, even though over a quarter of the year was over already. Before they set about making wishes, however, the pair of them bought omikuji to see how their luck would be for the rest of the year. Nakamaru's was surprisingly positive and he was happy, but Massu frowned as he read over all the bad luck he was predicted to have. He wondered if there was even any point in making a wish if it was bound to fail, and he headed over to a large tree on the grounds, where as was the tradition, he tied the omikuji in the hope that it would lead to better luck.   
  
The next part of their visit led them to pray and make their wishes. As they closed their eyes, Massu wished that NEWS would continue with four members and that he wouldn't have to deal with losing anyone else. He opened his eyes and watched Nakamaru as he finished himself, wondering what his friend had wished, and if he felt like it was as hopeless as he did.   
  
As they walked back through the grounds, Massu glanced up at his omikuji hanging from the tree and waving in the spring breeze, and he wasn't sure that anything in the world could ensure that his wish would come true. Sometimes, he thought, wishes could only come true if you took action. There were certain things that he just couldn't control, and he hated that. He wished life could be as easy to control as his closet and his possessions were. It was several days later when he realised that perhaps it could be, if he really wanted it to be.  
  
 **April 21st 2012**  
  
"Whose idea was it to countdown to the announcements?" the detective asked Massu.   
  
It had been three days now. Three days of questioning daily for them to finally reach the point where they were talking only weeks before the incident. Massu had discovered it was very difficult to sleep in a police cell. It was difficult to do  _anything_  in a police cell. Over the past few days, he had been running on fewer and fewer hours of sleep, and it was beginning to show in his pale expression on his face and the dark circles under his eyes.  
  
"It was mine," Massu admitted, and he knew exactly what was coming. He wouldn't say he was getting bored with the questioning, since it was the most attention anyone seemed to have paid to him in a while, but it was all beginning to get a little predictable and he was spending a lot of his time wondering in his mind how many words the whole thing would translate to if it was printed in a magazine. By now, it was beginning to look less like a magazine article and more like a whole magazine. Perhaps even a novel. He wondered if Shige would have enjoyed writing that.  
  
The detective nodded. "So, when you came up with the idea of a countdown, did you already know what you were going to do at the end of it?"  
  
Massu shifted his position in the plastic chair that had practically become his home over the past three days, leaning forward and resting his elbow on the table, his chin in the palm of his hand. "You didn't go in my apartment yet, ne?" he asked despite already knowing the answer.   
  
The detective raised his eye at the sudden change in topic, but shook his head in confirmation. "You're right. Is there a reason why we should?"  
  
"Maybe." Massu shrugged his shoulders, a small smile appearing on his face.  
  
"You don't like your stuff to be messed up, do you?"  
  
"... so, if I don't tell you where to find what you need to find, you'll mess the place up?"  
  
"We'll have to."  
  
Massu seemed to contemplate this for a moment, and then let out a sigh. He wasn't sure at this stage that he would ever even see any of the things in his apartment again, a fact that he seemed to have accepted, but he still didn't like the thought of someone rummaging through his personal belongings, not while he was still alive to think about it. "So, if you know that I don't like people messing up my stuff, you'll know I'll tell you everything you need to find and where it is, so you won't have to, right?"  
  
The detective nodded.  
  
"Okay," Massu confirmed with his own nod, and leaned back in his seat again. "There isn't a lot, but perhaps it will be useful to you."  
  
 **April 17th 2012**  
  
The early morning sunlight streamed through the window of his bedroom as Massu fiddled with his webcam to get it into a position where his face wasn't obscured by the glare. Eventually he settled for sitting on his bed cross-legged with his webcam sitting on top of his laptop in front of him, pointing up at his face so that he was looking down on it.   
  
"Masuda yo~!” he spoke enthusiastically into the camera, a smile on his face.  
  
“Today is April 17th 2012. It's 8am, and there are 16 hours left on the countdown. I've been watching it a lot. It's nice when it goes yellow.  
  
Suddenly, it's so hard to hold everything in. I'm bubbling over with... something. I don't have a word for it. I bet Shige does. It's probably in his book. I promised him I would finish it some day. Well I don't break promises, and I guess that day is today."   
  
He stopped speaking for a moment, and glanced around, reaching over to a shelf on the wall and pulling out the book from amongst a selection of others. There was a bookmark somewhere around page 10. He flicked through to that page and there was continued silence as his eyes scanned over the page, and then he closed the book again and looked back at the camera. "But not right now, ne?" He set the book back on the shelf.  
  
“Every big moment we've had as a group, or individually, has always been captured on camera somehow, officially or unofficially. I just have this webcam, because I couldn't really get a camera crew to film _this_ , but I felt like it should be marked somewhere because one day, someone might want to see it.  
  
Because we're on camera all the time, everyone thinks they know us, me. The fans know my favourite food is gyoza. The group knows that I organise my closet by colour. The group doesn't know that not only do I do that, right now, I then alphabetise them based on what is written on the label. So I can't buy clothes that don't have things written on the label, because how would I know where to put them? They'd think it was crazy, ne? Nakamaru Yuichi knows about that. He's number one when it comes to knowing things about me. But, still, if my soul suddenly came to the surface, I'd be a complete stranger to him."  
  
Massu laughed.  
  
"I'm getting pretty deep, ne? Anyway, I guess if you're watching this then it happened, I did it. I planned the countdown, waited for it to end, and I carried out what I needed to do. You're probably asking yourselves why. I learned many times that you can wish for something all you want, but you can't just wait for it to come true because wishes don't come true unless you do something about it yourself. I made one wish a long time ago, and it was when that one didn't come true that I knew that the only way I could stop my second one from failing was to make sure myself that it couldn't. I wanted to take control of my life.  
  
I made a wish this year just like every other year. No one will ever know what that wish was except for me. Mysterious, right? But it doesn't matter. All you need to know is that because I've done what I've done, that wish I made cannot fail. So, because of that, I want you to know I'm happy now.”  
  
He went silent for a moment, staring at the camera, and for a moment he seemed to be struggling to figure out what to say next. “But... I really didn't want it to have to come to this, and for that, I'm very sorry,” he said quietly, and his demeanour had suddenly changed again. Confident Massu had disappeared and Massu the worrier had come back.   
  
“Thank you everyone over the years, for your love and support. I really am truly grateful. This was NEWS' Masuda Takahisa. Goodbye.”   
  
Once he had finished speaking, there was silence once again, and the view on the screen showed Massu reaching up, and rubbing at the corners of his eyes. One hand moved away, fingers damp with tears, and the screen went blank as he turned the webcam off.  
  
 **April 18th 2012**  
  
There was an excited buzz in the radio station as the now four member NEWS sat surrounding a large monitor which was showing the countdown to their announcement slowly progressing towards zero. As thousands of NEWS fans watched the countdown slowly ticking towards zero on the website, the groups members too were sitting viewing the special page that had been set up to mark their comeback. The four gathered in the radio booth, microphones at the ready as the countdown on the screen reached twenty seconds, and then fifteen and then soon...  
  
Ten. Koyama was the first to decide to mark the final countdown out loud.  
  
Nine. Tegoshi soon caught on, joining in, his tone excited, ready to get this started.  
  
Eight. Shige had been distracted asking Massu a question to which he had received no answer, and finally added his voice to the count down as it hit number eight.  
  
Seven. Massu was distracted, although no one really noticed. Suddenly realising there was a countdown happening, he spoke up too.  
  
Six. Koyama was clapping now, the smile on his face widening with every second that passed.  
  
Five. Tegoshi raised one hand, and began to count down with his fingers.  
  
Four. The number four on the screen grew and launched itself forward as every one of them had over the past few days. This one just happened to be yellow.  
  
Three. The excitement had reached frenzied levels, all three of them suddenly clapping and counting down   
  
Two. Massu reached into the bag sitting on the spare chair by his side.  
  
One. In the corner of the room, a red light flashed on. The radio show was now live on air.  
  
"Good evening, this is NEWS' Koyama Keiichiro. Tonight is special, we're here live, and here are -"  
  
Before Koyama could finish, he was distracted by Massu standing up out of his seat. He saw a glimmer of something shining, which he first thought was the ring the other was wearing on his finger, but before he even had chance to think about it further, he felt a sharp pain in his back.  
  
The other two group members had practically leapt out of their seats, watching in horror as Koyama slumped onto the desk in front of him, a dark stain appearing on the back of his shirt, and Massu made his way around the desks to where they had been sitting.   
  
"Massu. Massu, what are you doing?" a soft voice spoke. Tegoshi's voice.  
  
"I'm sorry," was Massu's only reply, and he held up the knife, looking into Tegoshi's eyes. He looked so calm, Massu thought. He didn't look like he thought he would really do it. And, it was at almost the same time that he realised he actually couldn't. He had loved Tegoshi for what seemed like a lifetime, had craved the lips that were now quivering slightly, craved the touch of those hands that were outstretched begging him to stop.   
  
"Stay out of the way, Tegoshi," he told him gently, and then his eyes fell on Shige standing behind the smaller man, who was looking rather less than calm.   
  
"Don't do this."  
  
Massu didn't want to listen to Tegoshi's voice pleading with him any longer. He couldn't handle it, but he couldn't kill him. He couldn't push that knife into the beautiful skin he had dreamed of running his fingers over. He stepped a little to one side, and launched himself past the man, aiming to hit Shige quickly. It was too late when he remembered how much courage the man he loved had. As he launched the knife forwards, he suddenly felt someone pushing in front of him. His knife broke through skin, and through something hard, before it settled. He heard a surprised sound, the kind that came before pain was really felt, and Massu watched in horror as Tegoshi slumped to the ground at his feet.  
  
Masuda Takahisa had never been the kind to really get angry. People said he was like a puppy. But right now, he was angry. Tegoshi was dead - he assumed - on the ground, he had put himself in front of Shige... Shige, who had once said that he didn't think he even deserved to live.  
  
"You were right," Massu said to Shige quietly, looking up at him, anger burning in his eyes. "Why do you deserve to live?" he asked, and before Shige could even put together a reply in his mind, Massu had used the full force of his strength to knock the other off his feet, and the pair of them crashed to the ground, knocking over Shige's chair as they landed on the carpeted floor, Shige underneath staring in fear up at Massu's face, a face that was almost unrecognisable to him now. And then Massu raised the knife, and Shige felt a sharp pain, and then nothing at all.  
  
In the corner of the room, the red light continued to shine, as thousands of fans across the country and worldwide struggled to work out what they had just heard. It was a few seconds later before the show was finally taken off air, controlled externally from the next room.   
  
 **22nd April 2012**  
  
“We've just had word from the hospital,” the detective said as he and Massu sat down in the interview room for what they hoped would be the last time, for now at least. Massu was leaning forward today, his chin resting in his arms against the table. Several days with very little sleep now was beginning to really effect him both physically and mentally, but the detective's words immediately caused him to sit up. “And?”  
  
“Tegoshi Yuya had surgery yesterday and woke up an hour ago. It seems he's going to live,” the detective revealed, glancing at Massu to see any kind of reaction on his face. Massu was so exhausted that it was hard to see any other emotion beyond that, but it came, and even Massu himself wasn't sure whether what he felt was disappointment or happiness.  
  
He recalled that omikuji hanging from the tree in the shrine, the wish he had made and the feeling he'd had at the time that nothing could stop him from failing. The huge decision he'd made about how to solve his problem, keep himself in control by ensuring that none of them could leave, had seemed like the only way, but it seemed like he really wasn't capable of taking control of his life.  
  
“He asked the doctor to tell you that he's sorry for putting your water bottle on the floor in the radio studio.”  
  
Massu frowned a little. He hadn't even noticed, and the fact that Tegoshi was apologising to  _him_  for something after what he'd done, sent guilt and shame flooding through him. He wondered if Tegoshi even knew that the other two group members were dead. It also made him realise how little Tegoshi really knew about his life, if he thought that a simple water bottle was the reason for all of this madness.   
  
“We watched your little video,” the detective told him after a moment of silence. “But I still don't really understand why. Are you ready to tell us?”  
  
Massu looked at the detective through half-lidded, weary eyes. He'd been thinking about this question for days now, over and over in his mind, when he was trying to sleep. He asked the question once more in his mind, and then he bowed his head. “I really don't know,” he told him, and he wasn't sure that he ever would.


End file.
